Here’s the good news: Human beings are basically good.
Here’s the bad news: Human beings are (almost) irrevocably fucked.
Because from where I’m standing, we’ve got too many really big fucking problems that we’re doing fuck-all about. And while we let them get worse, we argue ceaselessly about tiny little problems that won’t matter once we’re all goddamn dead and gone. Which, if we’re being honest with ourselves, is going to happen pretty fucking soon.
See, it starts with us. It starts with human beings. A child can be born to innocence, yes. Evil, I think, is something that comes later. It’s a different form of human waste besides piss and shit; and after however many thousands of years, we still have zero good ideas about what to do with it. It accumulates when people congregate and interact because we aren’t sufficiently evolved and don’t know how to resolve disputes without one combatant getting a devious little idea and then putting it into action.
That’s where the problem starts. When people start interacting. But we were naive and we didn’t think of how to deal with this problem, this idea of evil and we as a species have been paying the price ever since. Now we’ve got even bigger problems and it’s almost too late. A cynical man would say that it is too late. Maybe. Maybe not. It’s not up to me or any one person.
Let’s take a look at society today and separate all the real problems from the bullshit problems. Because we have a lot of bullshit problems and they’re distracting us from what really matters. They’re symptoms.
And as much as I’d love to blame individuals, this isn’t such a simple problem that you can point to one sick bastard and say “kill that fucking guy” and then see improvement in the event that anyone listens to you. Blaming people – no. Blaming in general will get us nowhere. We need to start looking for solutions.
So onto the problems. There are a lot. I can point to three or four big ones that have the potential to end us. Then I’ll talk about the bullshit problems that are pointless to argue or even give a shit about.
The first problem is a human problem: overpopulation. There’s an elephant in the room that no one seems to want to discuss, and it’s the fact that people aren’t dying as often as they should. Does this seem insensitive? Callous? Insensitive to the hundreds of unjust deaths that undeserving people die each day? I’m sorry. I really am. But, frankly, those hundreds of people a day (thousands, actually) aren’t in good enough company. Because the earth has just about reached its carrying capacity and soon we’re all going to start dying in greater numbers than we ever thought possible unless we start dying in the greatest numbers we ever thought possible. Either that or we have to slam the fucking breaks on human reproduction.
It’s a numbers game. It’s always been a numbers game, and these things we call ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and ‘justice’ and ‘ethics’ have never even entered into it. The fact of the matter is that the world just flat out can’t support the number of humans in the gene pool. This has only been made worse by the fact that, as a species, we’ve been getting mighty good at prolonging the inevitable. It’s basically our greatest achievement, and, poetically enough, it’s fucked us.
See, all these cures and treatments and vaccines and such have improved our standard of living (those who can afford it, at least) but delayed one of the most imperative things to the survival of an ecosystem: the eventuality of death. We need death, but our collective fear of it has put us all in a graver situation than any old man on his deathbed could ever hope to appreciate. If people don’t die on their own then they go on living while thousands upon thousands more jump into the gene pool each day. There are no unlimited resources, here, at least not enough to support that amount of unchecked growth.
Soon, we run out of ways to keep all the billions of us fed and sheltered and healthy. What then? We die. We die in droves. We die of famine, we die of disease, we die of wars fought over these precious resources, we die of genocidal campaigns staged as last-ditch attempts at fixing the problem that’s spiraled out of control, and we die until the planet says we can stop. We die.
There are a few possible solutions to all this that no one has taken at all seriously because of how inconvenient it would be for them. You would think that this first solution would be a given, but that’s because you’ve likely been raised in a society that’s blinded you to the truth for your own comfort. The fact of the matter is that when you give women complete reproductive control, the population stops growing so exponentially. There’s no politics, no “I need feminism because my brain tumor hurts my thinky thoughts,” just numbers: women who have control over their own bodies statistically bear fewer children because they aren’t fucking meant to have ten hungry kids to feed because this is the 21st century and people aren’t fucking insects who lay thousands of eggs in the hopes that two larvae might make it to adulthood.
Solution two that ties in with solution one: improve the living conditions of second and third world nations. People will not feel so desperate and come to live like these aforementioned insects if they can rest assured that their one offspring could carry on their genes. Why do you think these people have such a fondness for multiplication? Because they just love fucking each other raw that much? No, stupid, it’s because they can’t be certain that they can raise their children to adulthood because it is a real possibility that one or more of these children contracts malaria and fucking dies. The problem here is overcompensation: the citizens of these underdeveloped nations reproduce early and often in an attempt to counter the odds stacked against them. What they don’t realize is that the world will literally change its own rules in order to fuck them and what seemed like a solution to them becomes a problem for everyone. If, and only if these destitute people receive access to a higher standard of living, then they might feel a little bit more open to the idea of stopping after two kids. A higher standard of living, of course, means that fewer die of natural causes. But before you go waving your eugenics stick, know that it all evens out once the affected people start living healthier lives.
Second big problem: human apathy. We let this happen. As a people. We were so unsettled by the problems on the horizon that we got scared, turned our heads away and pretended they didn’t exist. Now, two generations later, the problems can be staring us right in the goddamn face and we can’t even be counted on to give two fucks. It’s all our fault. We asked the government to cure our societal ills, but the government is a shitty doctor and just gave us morphine instead. Now we can be told that our own government is spying on us, on its ally nations, and doesn’t intend to cease and fucking desist, and we fucking react as if JR just got shot before going for the goddamn popcorn.
We’ve gotten lazy. Complacent. Our lives are product sold to us by corporations and bought with the banks’ money. We are insignificant middle-men to them whose job it is to furnish their world, and make no mistake: it’s their world. Our lot in life is to go on as we always have, having grown fat and lazy and uncaring and utterly attached to what is easy and what is comfortable and what is safe.
Apathy is a disease, deadlier than cancer, than ebola, than AIDS, than malaria, than any new strand of influenza. It has been programmed into us like a computer virus and affected every aspect of our minds and our lives with them: we can be sedated with a flashy new piece of entertainment. We strive towards material milestones and strengthen the corporate machine with every step. We pour all of our enthusiasm into whatever the media has just turned into a sensation and have nothing left over for actual outrages. We fucking BELIEVE that a vote can actually change anything for the better, and then we blame the ones we’re all in this together with when it doesn’t. We receive ample proof that the nation we fought to create two and a half centuries ago has become the same evil empire it broke away form in the first place, and then we can’t even count on one of the men responsible to get his head blown off as punishment and as a reminder that we will not be ruled by the likes of you.
But we are ruled. Make no mistake about it. We’re ruled by two organizations: the military and the corporatocracy. The two are caught in an endless yin-yang of cooperative fellatio. The military protects the interests of the corporatocracy, and the corporatocracy makes sure that the money the military needs in which to do so reaches it.
This isn’t new. Eisenhower called it the Military-Industrial Complex, and he knew what he was talking about. Perhaps they served a purpose at one point, but the country is done being built and they’ve become vestigial. Unfortunately for us, they’re just as comfortable where they are as the average citizen, and they won’t go without a fight. But they count on our apathy. They know that as long as we’re fat and lazy and apathetic, we’ll never be a problem for them.
This system of apathy has actually built up a reaction system to identify and neutralize anything that threatens the paradigm. Those who take a stand are called crazy if they say anything and are labeled psychopaths if they do anything. The ones capable of blowing the whole system open like Assange and Snowden are immediately put on the government’s most-wanted list and chased halfway across the world for their “crimes.” Never mind that these crimes of theirs didn’t threaten national security – hell, Snowden even made sure that the information he leaked wouldn’t endanger any lives – only governmental security. And so, dogs of the complex that they are, the government chased these true patriots around and counted on their fingers how long it would take for the holes to seal up and the people to stop caring.
The solution to this problem cannot be implemented with a vote. There’s no vaccination for it, either. The Apathy contagion only ends when we as a people say it does. It’s on every single one of us or none of this works and nothing changes.
We’ve got this other problem, too, and it’s more of a piggyback problem than anything else but it’s still a parasitic disease and needs to be dealt with. They’re this breed of completely unimportant issues that are far more human interest friendly than real problems, so they get all the air time and column inches. I call them “bullshit problems,” and there are a lot of them. Let me list a few.
Save Species X: Our half-assed attempts at fixing all the damage we’ve done to mother nature over the years are the best example of ‘too little, too late’ that I can think of. People put time, money, and effort into saving some ground shrew we accidentally fucked over fifty years ago like it’s going to be what redeems humanity in the eyes of [your deity of choice here]. But they’re wasting their goddamn time. They should be more interested in what the planet thinks. The planet is the one who has the ultimate say over whether we all live or die. And the planet could give a fuck about that ground shrew, which is about as many fucks as it gives about humanity. So people, please don’t waste your time with the insignificant environmental pet cause of the minute. There are far more important problems like emissions and deforestation. Those are real issues.
The Social Equality Distraction: You would not believe how hot and fucking bothered people get by stupid shit they think is important. We act like the whole marriage equality movement, for instance, is somehow going to save us and is reason to celebrate. Really, though, it’s all a distraction. It just means that a more of us end up becoming more content with this fucked up place we call a country and allow the waves of apathy to wash over us. I’m sure it’ll be some small comfort that we can all be with our spouse (gender notwithstanding) when the preventable end comes, but it’s not going to discriminate based on sexuality.
Media Sensationalism: This one is obvious but still bears mentioning. I think I’ll just present it as a list of things and you need to stop fucking caring about immediately: Miley Cyrus and her stupid shit, the three Armenian whores and their stupid shit, Kanye West and his stupid shit, American news outlets and their stupid shit, Gwyneth Paltrow and her stupid shit, Justin Bieber and his stupid shit, the MPAA and their stupid shit, professional sports and their stupid shit, Tim Tebow and his stupid shit, Chris Christie and his stupid shit, Kim Jong-Un and his stupid shit, Dennis Rodman and his stupid shit, Ron Paul and his stupid shit, Rand Paul and his stupid shit, the Tea Party and their stupid shit, Wayne LaPierre and his stupid shit, Pat Robertson and his stupid shit, Fred Phelps and his stupid shit, TLC and its stupid shit, Phil Robertson and his stupid shit, Brett Ratner and his stupid shit, and finally Newt Gingrich and his stupid shit. None of these people and organizations actually matter in the grand scheme of things. They’re like Tinkerbell: stop believing in them and they’ll go away.
Arbitrary Divisions: Every time you say “Political/Ethnic/Social/etc. Group X is what’s wrong with America,” David and Charles Koch hotbox their money room by burning a big pile of hundred dollar bills and start giggling like idiots about all the little people and their cute little squabbles. It’s all bullshit. Everything that you think puts you above your fellow man really just tightens the iron collar around your neck and his that the Military-Industrial Complex has fitted you with. Every second you spend blaming another group for the country’s problems is just money in the pocket of the ones who truly rule you. We treat words like “nigger,” “faggot,” “cunt” and “spic” like weapons against our supposed enemies, but they’re really just little plastic BBs that only get everyone angry. And in our anger, we get stupid and blind like the livestock we’ve been made into by the real enemy. The illegal immigrant, the poor stupid redneck voting against his own interests, the gun owner across the street, the pot smoker next door: none of these people are your enemies. They are your brothers and sisters in bondage and the sooner you realize that, the sooner we can all achieve some solidarity and stop taking it up the ass from the people who benefit from our infighting.
In 2014, I want to see some shit blow up. Important shit that can’t be replaced. And I want the only people people mourning for it to be the ones who built their castles (now in ruins) upon our backs. See, that’s the interesting thing: there are two types of people you can always count on to fight the hardest. Those with everything to lose, and those with nothing to lose. They will fight tooth and nail to keep what they’ve stolen from us. So we need to fight just as hard. There are more of us than them, and they need to be reminded of that.
Yes!